Happy New Year, everybody! Now that 2016 is officially over, I have
decided to release a list of my five favorite movies that were released
this year. Now, I have not seen every movie that came out this year
(thank God) and I have yet to see a few that I wanted to see because I
decided to wait for the home media releases of those films. So this list
is only for movies that were released in 2016 that I actually watched
in theaters. With that disclaimer out of the way, here are my top five
favorite movies from 2016. (Side note: Read to the end for an important
announcement.)
#5: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
I
was really excited for this movie, but I left the theater feeling
disappointed. This was due to the fact that I found the movie
predictable. Half an hour into the movie, I knew exactly how the rest of
the movie was going to go down. That's just bad storytelling. I should
not walk away from a movie and feel like the movie didn't have more than
one draft. To add insult to injury, we now know that there was enough
alternate footage that the film could have been completely different. I
only know a little bit of what could have been different, but from what
I've heard, I'm not convinced the executives at Lucasfilm and Disney
made the right decisions with regards to what to keep and what to leave
out. There could have been so much more depth to this movie, but instead
it was just a cookie cutter story that I could have written when I was
ten. Enough about the story, though. Why is this in my top five? Because
it was fun to watch. It was genuinely suspenseful, even though that
suspense was building up to predictable results. The cast did a great
job with their performances, and the action is some of the best to be
found in a Star Wars movie. However, I cannot excuse the predictable
storyline, and so this goes at the bottom of my list.
#4: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - The Ultimate Edition
I'll
be more brief going forward because I have already reviewed the other
four films on this list. I enjoyed the theatrical release of this film,
but I had to watch it twice in order to understand what was going on.
However, the Ultimate Edition - which added 30 minutes to the film's run
time - was so much smoother in terms of flow and it resolved several
plot holes that were present in the original version. Is this a perfect
film? No, it isn't. Is it (for the most part) well-made? Yes, it is.
#3: Arrival
I
was genuinely surprised by this film. I had seen a video on Youtube
where someone was talking about that film and saying how excited they
were about it, so I went and watched the trailer. I decided to give it a
shot, and boy am I glad I did. While it is quite brainy and told in a
non-linear fashion, it is quite original in its take on the popular
"aliens come to Earth" story. Don't watch this one if you just want to
passively watch a movie, but if you are willing to put your thinking cap
on, this is one of the best movies to be released in 2016.
#2: Jason Bourne
I had finally gotten around to watching the first four Bourne
films at the end of 2015, and I was really excited to see that a fifth
was coming out the following year. I was even more excited for it when
the first trailer dropped during the Super Bowl. And it did not
disappoint. As I said in my review of the film, it is an interesting
character study into why Jason Bourne is Jason Bourne. It had depth that
none of the others had, and it is definitely my favorite film in the
series.
#1: Captain America: Civil War
Not
only is this my favorite film from last year, this is my favorite film
in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Russo Brothers had quite challenge
when making this movie because they had to juggle a large returning
cast and introduce several new characters. But they absolutely nailed it, topping what Joss Whedon managed to do with Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The film hits all the right emotional beats, the pacing flows well, and
the film looks amazing visually. I could go on, but suffice it to say
that this film does the superhero vs. superhero story better than BvS, while also being a good thriller. And for that, it ranks at the top of my list.
Obviously,
this is all based on personal preference. That being said, I would love
to know what your favorite movies from 2016 were, so feel free to let
me know on Twitter (tweet me @chadsmovies) or in the comments to this
article.
Before you go, I have some good
news, and I have some bad news. The bad news is that this will be my
last post on this blog. For various reasons, I have decided that
maintaining this blog is not the best use of my time, so I will be
leaving the blog up so you can still see my old posts, but I will not be
continuing to write posts on it. The good news is that I will still be
releasing movie-related material on my Youtube channel. If that sounds
like something you might be interested in, you can subscribe to my
channel here. Thank you to all of you who have faithfully read this blog, and I look forward to seeing all of you over on Youtube.
